Ella gasps as she opens it with a small smile. Tears begin welling in her eyes.
“This has to be one from when we were younger. She had always liked to collect silly stuff and I had teased her about it. Now I’m just thankful she did that. It’s like I’m remembering everything like it was yesterday,” she says softly but her voice is strained.
We all look at everything she pulls out from movie stubs, to a couple figurines she had that obviously mean something to Ella. Then there are photos; a lot of photos.
Ella laughs and tells us that Stacey loved to take candid photos, and that sometimes they ended up horrible but, once in a while, there was a great one in the stack. There are so many and it looks like some were newer since they had club people in them.
My mom gasps at one of her and my father. He has his head thrown back in laughter and she’s smiling at him, and you can see the love she has for him in her eyes. I can tell that Stacey caught them at a perfect moment.
“Can we take this one? Or have a copy made?” my mom asks.
I immediately nod my head. “Of course. I think she would have liked that,” I tell them.
We find a similar picture of Ella and Damien. They are holding DJ on what looks like his first birthday. They are all eating cake. DJ is in a high chair in between his parents smiling while covered in icing. Damien is feeding Ella a piece of cake. Ella is smiling at him. It’s a picture perfect moment. Fuck, why didn’t she ever tell me that she took pictures like this?
There is also a great picture of Olivia, Steal, and Hale. Steal is giving Hale a piggy back ride and Olivia is chasing them; all of them are smiling.
Of course, I find several pictures of me as well. Lots of me when I would be telling her a story of something someone did at the club, or doing simple things like cooking her a meal.
Ella nods her head. “She was crazy good at what she did. I told her that she should have done more with her photos, but she was afraid that she wouldn’t like doing it anymore if it was a job. She always said that she always enjoyed capturing the emotions of people when they weren’t thinking that anyone was watching. She didn’t think that they would be very candid if others knew that she took photos.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me this, we were serious about each other. I fucking loved her,” I ask Ella.
She shrugs her shoulders. “I’m not sure. I knew about it because I saw the photos one day when I was working on a laptop that we both shared at the time. She wasn’t really confident enough in her pictures to tell anyone. I think she thought it was a silly hobby or something.”
I just nod my head like I understand, but I'm not sure that I really do at this moment.
We spend the rest of the day clearing out the room. It’s pretty much empty now. I end up with a box of stuff that my mom had insisted I keep.
It’s not that I want to get rid of everything that reminds me of Stacey, but I felt that living in a home that she had picked everything out in was holding me back from moving on.
If I fall in love in the future, I will still always love Stacey.
Chapter Fifteen
Tyson “Torch”
Four weeks later...
I’m currently sitting in the clubhouse.
We still have no word on Reaper but, as far as I know, there are no messages getting to Camilla. Though it seems her family’s home was trashed. We had to drive them back to see what was salvageable.
I thought that maybe Camilla would be scared or broken about it since that’s how she was when she was brought back here, but she seems more pissed off than anything.
There is nothing special going on right now, but I can’t bring myself to leave when Crash is sitting next to Camilla at one of the tables in the main room laughing at something she says.
I have this ugly feeling in my gut. I feel like my insides are twisting.
Sure, I have gotten to know Camilla more over the weeks. I watched as she, along with Crash, helped the women to learn some self-defence moves. Other times I have noticed that she genuinely looks happy here. She takes her time to get to know everyone and her family is fitting in quite well.
I find myself staring at her more. Not in a creepy way; at least I hope that she wouldn’t think it was creepy.
She’s not shy at all. She laughs with the brothers and Old Ladies. Her fucking smile is something else. I wish that I could be the one to make her smile.
I don’t remember the last time I wanted to hurt a brother so bad just for daring to talk to Camilla.
You can tell that they have become good friends though.
“You know, if you glare any harder I would think that you were jealous,” Ella says startling me.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I tell her and don’t bother to look at her.
She scoffs at my words. “You can pretend you don’t know, but the way you are glaring at Crash talking to Camilla tells me all I need to know. I just can’t wait until you realize it for yourself,” she says as she gets up and walks away.
Realize what?
There is nothing to
